Benchwarmer News

1/18/19

I'm on vacation through Wednesday night and
my time and ability to answer questions or fix issues will be
limited. Go ahead and contact me if you've got a question
or problem, but understand that my response may be delayed.

Tobacco Road League is full - I've reset
the draft list due date to Friday night, January 25,
at midnight Eastern time.

Welcome to Benchwarmer Baseball - It's
a unique form of fantasy baseball as we play 150 individual
head-to-head games in a season simulated from daily MLB
stats - this isn't a Rotisserie game.

This is fantasy baseball 365 days a year.
Teams have just cut down their 40-man rosters to
a maximum of 28 players that they can carry over onto
their 2019 squads. They are now about to
participate in the annual Redistribution Draft, where
teams that finished poorly last season get some
advantages to try to rebuild for this year and the
future.

Check out our
list of new leagues for 2019 that you can join to
begin your dynasty. Or, if you'd like to attempt
to turn around a struggling team, view our available orphan teams
...pick up an existing team and rebuild it,
rather than start from scratch.

If you're a first-time owner, you play under the
"rookie rate" of $35 for your first team (normal
price, $65)

For orphan teams assigned between 12/31 and 1/12, your
orphan cash has just been distributed in a special
financial update so that
you can judge your team's finances accordingly. (Foster parents
not included - that cash is distributed when a permanent owner
is assigned).

All orphan teams currently have foster owners - thanks for
the volunteers!

1/1/19

Trades are now closed until after the Redistribution
Draft is completed in February.

Your picks for which players you'll keep on your
roster in 2019 are due on Sunday night, January 13 at
midnight Pacific (1/14/19, 3AM EST)

125 players were removed from the game on the basis of
retirement or signing to play in foreign ball, including
these 8 that were on BWB rosters: Chris Anderson, Cody Ege,
Jose Fernandez, Jeff Ferrell, Casey Kelly, John Lackey,
Jefry Marte, and Jake Thompson. Those players have been automatically
deleted from any BWB rosters.

Coming later this week - planned to post by the end of next
weekend:

Minor league results for 2018, including financial bonus
awards

New players added to the list for 2019

I have to look at the transaction order for the
Redistribution Draft and will need to reset it (criteria are
a bit different in season vs. off season)

There are some page/site fixes to come as well

12/27/18

Happy Holidays! I'm back from a few days out of town
and can start ramping up with more action on preparation for
next season (page fixes, rule change conversation, new
features?).

I'll have some time to do a little work on Thursday night -
no time on Friday - and then will get into it more over the
weekend.

I've got the last batch of orphan teams to add to the list
Thursday night from owners who never responded yes/no.
Seven more teams to add, including 2 teams in Moneyball and 1
team in Murderers' Row if you're interested in a private prize
league.

12/12/18

OK - I think I've got this right - the information below
your roster about your roster limits and the totals of the
players you are keeping for 2019 should now handle the prospects
on your team correctly. Let me know if you find any errors
in the counting or on the page itself.

Reposting and updating this note originally posted below on Nov. 24: Effects of the Prospects Roster: (see
the full rule)

There are no additions or other adjustments allowed to
the prospects roster at this time (Week 21 of the 2018
season was the deadline - no changes again until after the
2019 Redistribution Draft)

If you receive a player in a trade who was on that other
team's prospect roster, he enters your roster as one of your
40-man roster players - you can't put him on your prospects
list

Prospects don't count against the 28-player maximum that
you may retain on your roster for 2019. So you can
keep up to 28 players AND some or all of your prospects.

You may cut some or all of your prospects, you're not
mandated to keep them.

After the roster carryover decisions (January 13), all
prospects will revert to be part of your standard 40-man roster.
Keeping prospects will reduce the total number of players
you can pick up in the Redistribution Draft.

After the Redistribution Draft is compete, you can then
make moves to put players onto the prospects roster for 2019.

12/10/18

Trades are open again for period #2 - the deadline is
Sunday, December 30, 11:59 PM Eastern

A reminder that your picks for which players you'll keep
on your roster in 2019 are due on January 13, but you can be
working on that now.

13 players were removed from the game on the basis of
retirement or signing to play in foreign ball, including
these 6 that were on BWB rosters: Jabrari Blash, Chris
Gimenez, Justin Haley, Justin Hancock, Pierce Johnson, and
Tommy Joseph. Those players have been automatically
deleted from any BWB rosters.

11/27/18

Payment for 2019
teams is available. For returning owners, your
deadline to pay isn't until Opening Day - though if you pay by
December 9, you'll get a $5 discount per team. If you are
playing a lot of teams, you might want to check out one of the
two package plans.

11/26/18

If you've signed up for new teams or have bonus teams you
want to use, there are new
leagues for 2019 now available to join.

11/25/18

MLB Info has been updated to reflect transactions between
11/6 and 11/24.

13 players were removed from the game on the basis of
retirement or signing to play in foreign ball, including
these 6 that were on BWB rosters: Raul Alcantra, Adrian
Beltre, Alan Busenitz, Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, and Christian
Villanueva. Those players have been automatically
deleted from any BWB rosters.

Quick and dirty fix - your post season roster page and the
page you use to select your cuts are both now updated to show
which of the players on your roster are "prospects" - those
players do not count against the 28 maximum players you can keep
for 2019. Later - hopefully by the end of the coming week
- the roster page will correctly note the totals at the bottom
to reflect which players you're keeping and that prospects don't
count in the totals.

11/24/18

Premium salary adjustments have been applied - 2019
salaries are now final (will post some of the changes
on Sunday)

I'll be updating the post season roster page and will add in
a link to let you change your lineup (to help arrange who you're
keeping or not) - in the meantime, you can get to the lineup
change form from the all your
rosters page.

There are no additions or other adjustments allowed to
the prospects roster at this time (Week 21 of the 2018
season was the deadline - no changes again until after the
2019 Redistribution Draft)

If you receive a player in a trade who was on that other
team's prospect roster, he enters your roster as one of your
40-man roster players - you can't put him on your prospects
list

After the roster carryover decisions (January 13), all
prospects will revert to be part of your standard 40-man roster.
Keeping prospects will reduce the total number of players
you can pick up in the Redistribution Draft.

After the Redistribution Draft is compete, you can then
make moves to the prospects roster for 2019.

Coming up in the next few days and the near future:

Sunday night 11/25 - Player MLB status will be updated for MLB
transactions after 11/6 - any players that have announced
retirement since 11/6 will be removed from the game.

Sunday night 11/25 - First new 2019 leagues will be open to
join and the first orphan teams listed

Soon - Post season roster page will be updated to handle
the carryover totals correctly for the prospects list

By Saturday 12/1 - Players of the Year
final. Post season cash for playoff results
and Players of the Year will be awarded

Sunday, 12/9 - Fall trading period #1 deadline

Sunday, 12/30 - Fall trading period #2 deadline

Sometime in December after the Rule 5 draft - new
players will be added to the BWB player list if they are on
the MLB 40-man roster.

Sunday, 1/13/19 - Roster retention decisions deadline

11/22/18

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey - quick note to answer some questions from a few
people... If you're trying to use your bonus teams to join
a new league, or if you just signed up for BWB and want to join
a league - the new 2019 leagues aren't active yet. And we
don't have any orphans ready yet, either. I will try to
have some of that ready this weekend but we have family
visiting, so it might be later on Sunday or on Monday before
they are ready.

11/20/18

With the fixes to player salaries, the salary cap value
has changed slightly. Instead of 38490, it is 38954.
The difference has been
added to your team finances and your cash balance is
updated. There's no change for new leagues in 2019.

Salary calculations have been fixed and the salaries
on the site are now corrected. Again - these do
not yet include the premium salary adjustments.

With the salary corrections, I need to double-check the cap
value for 2019. I plan to have that verified/corrected by
Tuesday night.

Your rosters are now set to post-season mode and you can
begin to pick the players you want to keep/cut for 2019.
This process is not yet updated for the "prospects," so the
roster limits warnings are not accurate and at this point, the
prospects are not shown on your roster page. This should
get fixed by Sunday, Nov 25

Trades are now open - the first fall trade
period deadline is Sunday, Dec. 9 at midnight Eastern.

11/19/18

First step before you can do any trading or pick
your carryover players - indicate if you're
keeping each
of your teams in 2019. You must answer "yes" before
you may submit any trades or before anyone can contact
you for trades. Deadline is December 9
or we assume the unanswered teams become Orphans.

There's another issue with salaries - for at least several
players didn't play in MLB, their 2019 salary is showing as the
same as 2018...and that's not right. I will redo the whole
salary calculation to make sure it's right. This may
affect the salary cap (but unlikely to have much effect).

Hey, looks like some salaries are screwed up. Someone
let me know about Zack Wheeler being off and as I take a quick
look at the salary calculation it appears as though some
pitchers were incorrectly calculated at the minimum salary for
2018 stats (including Wheeler, Strasburg, Leake, Kyle Gibson,
and some others). I'll need a bit to figure out what went
wrong with that...

11/18/18

OK - I'm very sorry for the delays - but you can now see some of the
results of the setup for 2019. Players now have new
(incomplete) salaries for 2019 and their positions are set for
2019.

Usually I post some things in late October/early November
and that allows me some staggered updates, but since I didn't
get the salaries/positions done earlier, I was stuck a bit in
having to change too many things all at one time.

Here's what is upcoming and will gradually become
active on the website:

2019 Salaries are not yet final - I
still need to go through and add in the premium salary
adjustments for top MLB performers that will increase some
salaries 1-30%. My plan is to have all the salaries
final by Sunday night, Nov 25.

Any player showing an "x" in their position
didn't have any MLB stats in 2018, so I need to go back in
and check what they did in the minors in 2018 (or maybe they
didn't play at all) - those positions may change. That
usually takes a lot of time and will be finished sometime in
December.

Soon I'll open up a page to allow you to indicate which
teams you're keeping in 2019.

By Monday night, I plan to open up your options to
begin
trading with other teams.

As soon as possible, I will open up the page to allow
you to indicate which players you want to keep for 2019 and
which ones you'll release into the Redistribution Draft.

New leagues for 2019 will be opened
soon.

As people indicate they're dropping teams, orphans will
become available.